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Saturday, June 14, 2014

Mexico Week 16 -- Ups and Downs

My Dear Sweet Favorite Family!

I think I
have a new love and they are called mangoes! For real, I am like Marley from
Marley and Me! The fruit in the picture is called a pitalla! They are the
weirdest things but I really do like them! Umm, I also decided that I would
like Nutella! Fun fact ... I like
avocados! I always said that I didn’t but I actually haven’t tried them. I
tried them and now I know that I like them! Also, Hermana Gudelia in our ward
makes and sells the most incredible ice cream. It’s like the family business! It is all natural and there a gal that makes
the cones out back from batter. Seriously, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen
and I don’t think any ice cream will ever top it! Okay, I think that covers everything that has
to do with food :)

Mom, kids
are loving your treats here! Seriously, you should see kids faces when we put
the towels in water! So fun!Sometimes we take the simplest of things for granted, like towels from
the dollar store with characters on them, or using a box of crayons with more
than eight colors, or markers that smell!I love watching them get so excited as they experience these for the
first time.It is such a great reminder
to appreciate the smallest and most simple things in life.

I got to see
Hermana Mansfield this week! She’s had two trainers and they’ve both returned
home early from their missions. She’s
struggling a little bit and is with the sister training leaders. She is still
working on finishing her training program.I will never stop having gratitude for Hermana Valdez. I am amazed by Hermana Mansfield’s
determination and strong will to just roll with the punches!

This week
for stake conference we went to the chapel that is right next to the temple! It is outside of our mission boundaries, so
who knows when we will get to return, but it was so pretty! The Infante family brought us.How awesome is it that y’all are Facebook
buds and rockin pictures for Tyler!

I have a
question for you guys! One of the hermanas in our ward has a twin sister in the
mission field and her sister asked her what blessings they have received from
her being on a mission. I thought that was an interesting question and you
should all hit me up with a response!

Well
whoa...so much happened this week...good and bad!

First things
first, Antonio loved his GIANT Book of Mormon!He could totally see everything and it made such a difference in his
ability to read.We were so excited to
see him later in the week and see how far he had gotten.We went to clean the house again on Friday! His bathroom and bedroom under the direction
of Claudia! Not gonna lie, they were
pretty nasty, but that’s what service is all about right? A couple of days later, I just got really
frustrated with this old fart. It’s like
on paper he’s doing all of the right things, but he just doesn’t feel it. I’ve really been dumping my heart out to
Heavenly Father every day. In our weekly planning, we planned a whole hour just
for him. I just felt like we received a ton of revelation for him. Before his lesson on Friday, we studied a ton,
we practiced and felt the spirit so strong. We were going to rock this Word of Wisdom
lesson! I was so pumped to teach Him!

So we start
teaching, we are teaching so good together and really feeling the spirit, I can
see it in Hermana Antonio’s eyes too that he’s really listening. ‘I said things
that I know didn’t come from me. Well at
the end of the lesson, some kind of switch flips and he gets fired up telling
us that drinking coffee isn’t a commandment from God. Also that he doesn’t need to repent for all of
the adultery that he committed because it’s natural. Actually, he said he won’t pray to know if it’s
a commandment or not. He’s still fired
up and I just felt the spirit really strong and told him that we respected him
a lot. We know that we have a lot to
learn from his life of experience, and then I asked him for his respect. Because even though we are young, we have
experiences too. We are representatives
of Jesus Christ that invite people to come unto Christ and to know Him and His
laws and how we are going to make it home. We are not going to force him, but we are
giving him the opportunity to know the truth. Then I asked him to say the
closing prayer.He had this look on his
face and his tone of voice completely changed and he said he would offer the
closing prayer.

Leaving
there, I was thinking so much about Carlos Contreras ... another night we left
after a rough lesson. It is truly
heartbreaking when we leave a house and even a desire to know the truth or
follow it isn’t there. Actually, I
started thinking about Heavenly Father. He
taught all of His kids for who knows how long. He taught every single one of us the plan. He loved us so much and knew exactly what we
needed to make it back to Him. And yet, a
third of his kids said no. I can’t even
imagine how he felt. Missionaries like
Abinadi and Alma loved people and they taught people who rejected the message
too. The truth is, it is hard because
you love them. For as frustrated as he
makes me, I just love the heck out of him. He prays for health every
single day but also drinks coffee every day. He has chronic health issues and won’t follow
the directions from the doctor. Sometimes I just want to say, “Hey buddy, you
can’t pray for health every day and ignore Heavenly Fathers health code.”

I started
thinking about the things that I’m praying for. Am I following the counsel Heavenly Father has
given me? Praying with faith means that
we do something, we try something. He’s
answering us, He’s giving us the counsel. Obedience is so important and it is the answer
to everything. We just have to have the
faith that He loves us and His commandments are loving instructions. Then, we have to show our love and obey. Half obedience means half blessings. We can’t
receive a blessing without obedience to the law upon which it was
predicated.

So, the
other day, we visited Hermana Ester. I
told her sorry for not having more patience with her husband and explained what
we taught and how he responded. I told
her how I felt and afterward, we sang some hymns. We taught her how to pray in her mind the last
time and asked her if she’s been praying. She told us yes and that she feels better when
she prays. We prayed before we left and
I held her hand like I always do, but her hands are super limp. While we were
praying, with the tips of her fingers, she squeezed my hand. It was the most
incredible thing and I know that sometimes our Heavenly Father answers prayers
through other people. Ah, it was just
one of those mission moments that I am never going to forget.

So Hermana
Claudia took my blood pressure this week and it was super high, like wow, never
been that high before! It kind of
freaked me out and I realized how stressed I have been. In this past General Conference David A.
Bednar said "I wonder if we fail to fully acknowledge this strengthening
aspect of the Atonement in our lives and mistakenly believe we must carry our
load all alone - through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline and with our
obviously limited capacities. It is one
thing to know that Jesus Christ came to the earth to die for us, but we also
need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the
power of the Holy Ghost, to enliven us, not only to guide but also to
strengthen and heal us." Wow!Is that true or what? When I was set apart and also when I received
a blessing before leaving the MTC, both talked about learning more fully how to
come unto Christ. I think sometimes I think that I just have to work really
hard, like really, really hard, and after, I can feel His love, approval, and
forgiveness. I think I’m starting to
learn that this is not how it works.I
think the lesson I need to learn is that we can feel these things every step of
the way. I know that the Savior lives and I know that one of my biggest trials
is to overcome my perfection problems and let Him love me and let Him help me.
Good thing I’m firming up this relationship with Him right now! I hope that
someday my kids can read this stuff and hopefully they can learn from my
challenges and I can be somewhat of an example for them!

I love you
all so much! I’m a little jealous that I
am missing out on graduation and Nat and Tony this week but know that I love y’all
tons!